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Updated April 18th, 2021 at 09:53 IST

Row over Remdesivir in Mumbai as Fadnavis claims police stopped consignment he'd arranged

DCP Manjunath Singe refuted the allegations made by Devendra Fadnavis and said he was summoned for an inquiry given the widespread black marketing of Remdesivir

Reported by: Gargi Rohatgi
PTI
PTI | Image:self
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Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday accused the state police of harassing a Daman-based Remdesivir supplier for agreeing to supply a stock of the drug to the state at the request of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders. While speaking to the reporters, Fadnavis said, "Four days ago, we had requested Bruck Pharma to supply a stock of Remdesivir vials to Maharashtra. They said they couldn't until permissions were given. I spoke with Union Minister Mansukh Mandviya and got Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s permission. Tonight around 9 pm, the police arrested him."

Speaking further, the former Maharashtra Chief Minister also said that the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Manjunath Singh told that they had inputs that some exporters had 60,000 vials and they only wanted to verify the same. He said, "We showed the police the permission letter. He (DCP) said it wasn't communicated to them earlier."

Maharashtra Police: 'Acting in good faith...' 

Stating that whatever happened was wrong, Fadnavis said that when the DCP was questioned for his act, he refuted the allegations of arresting the distributor and said that the Remdesivir supplier was just summoned for an inquiry given the widespread black marketing of the antiviral medication. 

DCP Manjunath Singh told reporters, "There's a shortage of Remdesvir in the state and black marketing is rampant. We had got information about this storage facility. Acting in good faith, we only wanted to verify the inputs. He (supplier) was called for an inquiry, it wasn't an arrest.

As India reported its highest-ever single-day spike of COVID-19 cases with over 2.34 lakh new cases and more than 1,300 deaths on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting to review the status of preparedness to handle the ongoing pandemic.

COVID-19 situation in Maharashtra

As the country continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, Maharashtra so far has recorded over 37,03,584 positive cases, out of which 30,04,391 have successfully recovered and 59,551 have died. As per the latest reports from MoHFW, in the past 24 hours, 63,729 new cases, 45,335 fresh recoveries and 398 deaths have been reported. Currently, the total number of active cases in the country is 6,39,642. 

(Image: PTI)

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Published April 18th, 2021 at 07:20 IST

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